Watch_Dogs 2 is a game about improper fractions.
I broke a cardinal rule a couple days ago and instantly paid for it. The rule is I never go out on New Years. Almost all of my top ten near death experiences have happened on that night. The universe gives me a lot of shit but I truly believe it looks out for me; if only to chuckle at my misadventures.
The thirty-first of December seems to be my ethereal frienemies off day, and all sorts of grumkins capitalize in the form of drunks, gunfire, explosions and flashing lights. A lifetime full of grand openings followed by grand closings set to a day. I'm good and I get it, Steam sales and Netflix in the bunker, couldn't imagine a better start to the year now that I think about it.
Problem with this year is that I forgot to buy groceries for the last twenty years and I was hungry. Not like, "I could eat." Hungry. I was, "I am willing to risk my life for Rolled Taco's." Hungry. So that's what I did. I waited until an hour after the ball dropped because the downtown crazies will obviously be looking to beat traffic home, I threw on my away game gear and headed to offworld.
I walk exactly one block north when an SUV cop car rolls up with lights flashing. "HEY! Did you see somebody running this way?" "Nope." Cop car speeds off. I smiled and thought, "He didn't assume I was the perp! See, this isn't gonna be so bad!" I walk exactly one more block up and outside of the Taco shop stands a gathering of Hilltop Piru. I smiled and thought. "Goddammmit."
So here are my options. I can turn around and briskly walk back home, which can produce two scenarios. One scenario is I run back into the police cruiser who now gets suspicious which a synonym for guilty. Another scenario is I turn around and walk back which arouses the suspicions of the bright red wolf pack who now get suspicious, which is a synonym for lunch. My third option is to say fuck it I'm hungry and walk into the taco shop, get some fuckin' rolled tacos, and walk out. Any negative in that scenario is balanced by rolled tacos. So that's what I do.
Turns out the taco shop is packed. Out of towner new years revelers inside looking very entrenched by the gathering outside. There is a sort of absence of air in these moments. A space full of people willing the world into pretending the world they found themselves in is normal, at a safari park where an animal could jump into the jeep at any time, but they won't, because that kind of stuff dosesn't happen to them.
I place my order and head outside to wait because if there is any one thing I've learned in life it's that it's always better to not be inside of the building when things go south. I light a smoke and hear "Ey J4!" come from inside the crimson tide. It's the guy who works at the 7-11 up the street I chat with from time to time about video games who is also a blood, apparently. Every time he sees me he makes the same joke about how I remind him of the guy from a show he likes called The IT Crowd and how me and that guy share the same name.
It's historically accurate that jokes get 100% funnier when told drunk, and this joke was no different. He decided to share this fact with all of his friends who took to it like a fish to water as well. He told them what I do for a living, and one of the guys remarked how I reminded him of the guy from a game he is playing called Watch_Dogs 2, something I never get tired of hearing. The 7-11 guys girlfriend just had to show me how far she had gotten in Super Mario run and how she is thinking of joining in this Clash of Clans tournament at her community college. I thought to myself, "I don't like the conversation I'm in, but it's better than being murdered, sort of."
The restaurant called my name, I got my food, I said goodbye to the gang after giving them my Steam and Xbox Live names and I once again survived another questionable decision in order to eat bomb ass rolled tacos. Next year I'm buying some Lunchables or ramen or something, shit's crazy out there.
Oh Rhonda... Rhonda... Rhonda. I hope information doesn't really think escaping 2016 means anythng. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Every year. Also JOBS.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Incongrous
